Meet the Selection Committee for the 2026 Moonshot Pilot Accelerator

These past fellows will be reading the 2026 Moonshot Pilot Accelerator applicants' pilot scripts, and selecting Quarterfinalists and Semifinalists.

Here are the Moonshot Accelerator alums serving on the Selection Committee for the 2026 Moonshot Pilot Accelerator, selecting this year's Quarterfinalists and Semifinalists.

Almost 1,000 writers applied to the 2026 Moonshot Pilot Accelerator! We're proud to share that Quarterfinalists and Semifinalists will be chosen by a committee of our Accelerator alums.

Here are the impressive bios of our Selection Committee for the 2026 Moonshot Pilot Accelerator!

Batoul Mourad is a writer from New York City. She studied History Education at NYU and has taught children grades pre-K to 12th grade. She now writes, primarily comedy, and is passionate about the storytelling inherent in our histories, whether global, national, or local. She was also a 2024 fellow at the Moonshot Pilot Accelerator Program where she pitched her original half-hour comedy to companies like HBO, Hulu, and Netflix.

While earning her screenwriting MFA from Stephens College, Elizabeth Dwyer hugged the inimitable Winnie Holzman and was imbued with the singular grit of storytelling mothers. Also an actor for stage and screen, she briefly considered becoming a lawyer until she realized she just wanted to play one on TV (Better Call Saul, S04 E04). Now a flourishing Moonshot Feature Accelerator Fellow, Stowe Story Labs Launch Fellow, ISA FastTrack Finalist, and WeScreenplay Diverse Voices Finalist, Elizabeth loves to tell all the love stories, especially when they're gay. The Black List says Elizabeth’s "dialogue sparkles." Her writing "has a little something for everybody,” is "tonally sharp and atmospheric" and "hilariously awkward.” Two of Elizabeth’s hilariously awkward scripts earned top spots in the Issa Rae/Paul Feig Teen Movie Contest (Top 8) and Table Read My Screenplay (Top 10). Elizabeth's latest goals are to queer the romcom canon and become a surgeon (on TV).

Brooke Solomon is a propulsive genre film & TV writer with a background in feature development, whose favorite stories generally center women wielding weapons (of many kinds). She grew up as a bisexual Lebanese girl on a farm in rural New Hampshire, where animals generally outnumbered – and outranked – the local people. A graduate of Emerson College, Brooke’s work has been recognized by The Black List, WIF, the Athena List, ATX TV, the Moonshot Initiative, and the Stowe Story Labs, among other fellowships. Most recently, she has worked with Audible and GammaTime Premium Shorts. Brooke also co-hosts "The Queer Quadrant," a podcast focused on LGBTQ+ representation four-quadrant blockbusters.

Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, Dani Milton loves writing about Black women in impossible situations. While juggling a corporate accounting career, Dani’s scripts have been honored by the Academy Nicholl Fellowships, the Athena Film Festival Writers Lab and other competitions. Dani was a 2022 Hedgebrook Writer in Residence and in 2023, Dani produced and directed The First Martian, based on her reproductive rights sci-fi short script. It is currently in post-production.

Rati Gupta is a rare breed of professional hip hop dancer turned comedy actor, writer, and storyteller best known for her roles on The Big Bang Theory, Future Man, and Unbelievable. A three-time champion of The Moth StorySlam, Rati draws from her own outlandish experiences for both the stage and screen. Her screenplays have advanced in the Launch Pad, Diverse Voices, and Austin Film Festival competitions, and she was a fellow in the 2023 Moonshot Initiative Pilot Accelerator program. The digital comedy series she wrote and starred in, Heart Baby Eggplant, also won the Audience Award at the Dances With Films festival.

Lex Powell is a writer-director-dilettante who noonlights as a psychotherapist. Their work has been presented at the Whitney Museum, New Museum, BAM, and The Kitchen (among other HIPAA-compliant locations). Lex was a Moonshot Accelerator Fellow for their half-hour comedy pilot PROCREATION, INC. They are in post-production on their latest short film, HOW TO USE THE BATHROOM, and in development for their first feature, EVERYBODY HURTS.

Kris Crenwelge has lived in eight different countries, worked with 20+ sports teams, and a coworker once put a curse on her because she wanted her job. An alum of the Moonshot Pilot Accelerator, Native American Showrunner Program, and Disney Writing Program, Kris wrote on TRUE LIES (CBS) and SPIRIT RANGERS (Netflix), nominated for 10 Emmys and a Peabody. Kris, who recently developed a comedy pilot with ABC, lives curse-free in L.A. with her husband and rescue pup.

Briana N Cox is a Black author and screenwriter. She is the oldest of seven children and a first-generation academic. They began writing scripts as a playwrighting Fellow with the TN Playwrights Studio in 2019. Briana is an Academy Nicholl’s quarterfinalist, 2024 Stage 32 Feature Screenwriting Fellow, and a 2025 Moonshot Initiative Feature Accelerator Fellow. They have won the highest screenwriting honors at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival and the Nashville Film Festival, have been featured on the 2024 Next List highlighting up-and-coming screenwriters, and her debut horror novel INDIGENT released in March 2026. Briana writes genre stories and speculative fiction from the margins.

Sylvia-Anne Parker is a former script supervisor from London who once had to give continuity notes to Her Majesty the Queen whilst filming a sketch for the London Olympics opening ceremony. As a screenwriter, she enjoys creating character-driven stories helmed by women of colour who have a strong sense of purpose and identity. A Fellow of the Sundance Episodic Lab, she was selected for the Cate Blanchett supported Writers Lab UK, Sony Creative Corridor Program and was a Fellow of the 2025 Moonshot Feature Accelerator. Her BBC/Apple Podcasts audio drama A Tale of Two Trumpets won best debut drama at the 2026 BBC Audio Drama Awards.

Kenyetta Raelyn is an award-winning Washington DC-based TV writer and Filmmaker. Obsessed with the Gilded Age and early American stories set during the Harlem Renaissance, she writes vividly about capitalism, wealth and privilege and their intersection with race and class. The product of a Midwestern rust-belt working-class upbringing -- yes, she did work in a still mill -- and a New England education with the one per cent, she's prone to write about the gray areas in between these social stratas. Big on world-building, specific with characters and strong on voice; her stories generally move in the crime thriller, young adult, edgy dramedy or historical lanes. She's currently staffed on an NBC Drama and is producing and directing her first feature film.

Andrea Shawcross is a screenwriter obsessed with writing thrillers and mysteries about obsessed women. She's written the Lifetime thrillers VANISHED IN YOSEMITE, DYING TO WIN, and MY SISTER'S SERIAL KILLER BOYFRIEND, plus IF I GO MISSING and BILLION DOLLAR BLUFF for Tubi, and wrote and created the webseries YOUNG & RECKLESS, an Austin Film Festival official selection distributed on Air Canada. A Moonshot Initiative Pilot Accelerator Fellow, she won the grand prize at both the Launch Pad and ScreenCraft Pilot Competitions, and her work has scored 8s on The Blacklist. She's currently in development on a new YA drama romance series, and splits her time between Vancouver, Canada and Venice, CA, forever chasing her next obsession.

Philippines-born and California-bred, Justine Grace Ceniza Rivero writes about women of color breaking free from societal expectations to discover their (often fantastical or futuristic) powers. Previously, Justine was an investigative journalist and technologist; now, she hopes to be the first Filipina-American showrunner. Her work has been recognized by Sundance, Netflix Screenwriters’ Fellowship, Austin Film Festival, Final Draft’s Big Break, ISA, Stowe Story Labs, and more.

Ramou Sarr is a writer in Los Angeles. She created, wrote, and starred in the web series “Brunch,” about two Black women pondering their neuroses over eggs and mimosas. She has written several personal narrative essays, two Glamour magazine cover stories, and one creepy short story about a missing Midwest teen. She has a background in indigent criminal defense and is passionate about telling the stories of dynamic, complicated, and often messy women.

The product of Jamaican and Ghanaian parents, Ama Anane grew up in two of the wildest places on earth: Papua New Guinea and Las Vegas. Her scripts, poetry, and standup explore the identities and experiences that divide us—and those that make us whole. Ama is currently a participant in the NBCUniversal TV Writing Program and was named one of the Austin Film Festival’s 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2025. She recently made her directorial debut with the short dramatic rom-com Cottonmouth, which was an official selection at the NewFilmmakers LA Festival, the Lower East Side Film Festival, and the Inside Out Toronto Film Festival, among others. Cottonmouth won Best First-Time Female Director and Best Romantic Comedy at the International Indie Short Fest. She is currently working on her second short dramatic rom-com, Smile, Roxy, which is being financed and executive produced by Level Forward and produced by Deniese Davis and co-produced by Katy Wicker.

Most recently, Ama was staffed as a writer on Dig, a new dramatic workplace comedy co-created by Mike Schur and Amy Poehler and starring Amy Poehler and Hugh Laurie.

Ama is also the founder of Good Influence Consulting, which works with nonprofits, philanthropy and public institutions. She has directed stakeholder engagement efforts for the 2020 U.S. Census in California, the Hilton Foundation, the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and UCLA. A graduate of Emerson College and Columbia University, Ama serves on the governing boards of Communities in Schools LA and the Moonshot Initiative (formerly known as the Women’s Weekend Film Challenge). She lives in Los Angeles with her wife and daughters.

What's next? Once our committee selects our Quarterfinalists and Semifinalists, all Semifinalist scripts will be read by two of our Industry Judges — showrunners, series creators, and high-level TV writers! Read about our Industry Judges here.

Read more about the 2026 Moonshot Pilot Accelerator here!